Facebook as an implied author: an investigation into the characterization techniques employed by users of the social networking site, Facebook, through a comparative study with Jane Austen's Emma
Date
2010-12-14
Authors
Schaefer, Isolde Carmen
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Abstract
Abstract
This research investigates how Facebook guides its users to characterize
themselves. By using Jane Austen, and specifically her characterization
techniques in Emma as a framework, Facebook is shown to use many of the
same techniques to guide its co-authors into certain characters. Comparing a
21st century social networking site to a 19th century novel is unusual, but will
show how in many ways Facebook functions as an implied author. The
comparison is also used to suggest that, contrary to previous research into
online social networking which focussed on profiles being used as an
expresson of a users identity, Facebook profiles are a fictionalised version of
the users and their lives. A case study, a young female studying at a private
university in Johannesburg, South Africa, is used to illustrate this. She is
shown to have created a fictionalised and idealized Facebook character for
herself, mostly through the use of photographs. Using her photos as
examples, the importance of photographic representation as a Facebook
characterization technique, including accompanying skills such posing for
photographs and editing photographs, is explored, as are the implications of
this visually based representation, for example the difficulty in portraying
depth of character or a believable inner life. The research employs Barthes’
writings on photography to guide these explorations.